Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Mahatma Gandhi: A Hidden Political Diary

15th July 1947: 9AM

Today's meetings were very critical for all party members. First it was general meeting in the morning that held for 3 hours and then in the evening it was a confidential meeting for executive members. Sardar Patel, Lokmanya Tilak, Maulana Azad, Jinnah, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Moti Lal Nehru and his son Jawahar - all were informed to ensure their presence for this important meeting. Only Jinnah and I were aware about the split that is going to happen next month. In the morning meeting, I being the chairing member had to speak for more than two hours. I was aware of the disaster that was about to happen next month but then I was not supposed to disclose it as it would have been an open invitation for development of riotous situation in the country. I was planning to have a one to one meeting with Jinnah soon after this meeting to discuss what should be our course of action and also it will be my last attempt to convince him that if we both oppose the preposition of British Empire for this split of our nation, probably they would be nobody to impose it on us. Let me give a last call to it before Jinnah.

It was a huge gathering of 15,000 party workers in the general meeting. During my speech of two hours to them, I emphasized on simple living, everyday prayer and humanity for each one of us. To make it a lighter moment at the end, I told them about the discussion that happened between Kasturba and me, in the morning. I asked her what does whole nation calls her and she replied - Ba. Then I asked her how appropriate it would be if the whole nation calls her Ba and me Pa. And there was a laughter all around. Inside my heart I was wishing about my meeting with Jinnah to go successful and him getting agreed to oppose British government along with me for this split.

15th July 1947: 12PM

I have hardly one hour with Jinnah for this very important meeting where it is going to be a do or die for both of us. I very clearly told Jinnah if you want to become PM and if that is the only reason of you favoring split, then you take this post here only. But let you spell out your greed in front of me before the whole nation comes to know about it. He accepted that this is what he was striving for the moment he saw the first ray of country getting independent from the claws of British. But inside his heart he too didn't want the split. And that is when we made this plan to be executed everyday till next month. The plan had to be executed with the help of executive members of the party and hence it was important to disclose the situation of split being created by British and how Jinnah and I were planning to not let it happen.

15th July 1947: 5PM

We both disclosed together to all the executive members what we had discussed few hours back and what is the execution plan to avoid this split. Everyone agreed to it.

During next one month each one of us did exactly what we had planned. A secret message was sent to each of the party member all across the nation. We called for an emergency meeting with British government on 10th August to make them clear that if they force us for partition we would move all Britishers who are here in India to only one place - Andaman - inside the jail that they built for us. It was very clearly told to them that this is not a threat, this is reality.

Finally the British government surrendered and moved off silently, letting us remain one as we were. No split. No Partition.